If you say something enough times, it becomes true.

There's a front page article in the Wednesday Wash Post wherein a reporter tries to come to grips to how the political journalistic culture enables politicians to lie unabashedly. Yet, therein the article he still does the thing that enables the pathology:

Palin and John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, have been more aggressive in recent days in repeating what their opponents say are outright lies. . .

That is a curious construction. The reporter does not want to judge the statement as a lie, even though the very next sentence reveal it to be so.

Almost every day, for instance, McCain says rival Barack Obama would raise everyone's taxes, even though the Democrat's tax plan exempts families that earn less than $250,000.

So they leave it to stating that the opponent claim it is a lie.

There's a difference however, in saying something is a lie, versus saying ones opponent claims it is a lie. Campaigns dispute each other all of the time, and thanks to the conceit of equal balance -- both sides given equal accord -- it is so easy for one side to flat out lie and get away with it.
Sarah Palin gets away with this every time she says she said "Thanks, but no thanks" about that bridge to Gravina Island. She did not come out against the bridge until well after support for the bridge was a political liability. She supported the bridge long enough to have a photo-op touting how she was standing up for "Nowhere, Alaska".